Here is one writer's analysis of a dozen or so of the top picks. There are significant issues with all but one, who is considered a possible stabilizing influence (Defense Secretary: Ret’d Gen. James Mattis).

Considered to be an open, direct, and humorous man, Mattis may actually be Trump’s best nomination to date. He has deep wells of support from both sides of Capitol Hill and within the military. Mattis is seen as someone who can rein in any potentially unwise military actions by Trump and bureaucratically neutralize NSA nominee Mike Flynn. But before Mattis can be approved, Congress must waive the requirement for him to have been a civilian for seven years.

That may well be a move worth favoring. For, as one New Yorker writer observed, Mattis is “intently focused on stability, wary of warfare that seeks to promote democracy or idealism, sentimental about the independence of the Baltic states, firmly committed to NATO, and unsentimental about Russia.” However, Mattis shares in Trump’s confrontational posture with Iran. He believes the country “must be dealt with as a threat to regional stability”—a position shared by Flynn and Pompeo.

Trump promised he would not touch Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc.

Trump lied.

The budget put forth by Price, his nominee for HHS shows he intends to do exactly that. Ryan wants to "modernize/streamline/etc." Medicare/Medicaid with voucher program where you get less every year, have to rely on private insurance. Kinda like the ACA they want to dump? Trump has changed the wording on his site to reflect this.

1) Sneaking massive benefit cuts through the back door
2) Rigging the budget process to cut earned benefits
3) Unraveling longstanding guarantees to those who rely on Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance and other Benefits
4) Rigging the budget with a fast-track for billionaire tax breaks

"Schumer: If Republicans destroy our health system, we won’t throw them a lifeline

The emerging GOP plan to repeal Obamacare on a delayed schedule — and then maybe kinda sorta replace it later — has raised a big question: Will Democrats help Republicans pass a replacement that is far less generous and comprehensive than the health law is, allowing Republicans an escape from the political fallout from repeal?

In an interview with me, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer answered this question with a resounding No. Under no circumstances, he vowed, would Democrats throw Republicans such a political lifeline.

“We’re not going to do a replacement,” Schumer said of the Senate Democratic caucus. “If they repeal without a replacement, they will own it. Democrats will not then step up to the plate and come up with a half-baked solution that we will partially own. It’s all theirs.” "

I don't blame Schumer. That's what I think he should do. The burden of the fallout of repeal of ACA needs to sit squarely on the shoulders of the Republicans who caused it.

What the Republicans are getting ready to do - appeal ACA - will also undermine the non-obamacare market. My daughter didn't sign for ACA because she doesn't qualify for the tax credits and I was afraid of ACA going away. We're paying for her private insurance - similar cost to ACA without tax credits. But when they tear down ACA the private individual insurance market will collapse and she will be without insurance with nowhere else to get it. Along with 20,000,000 other people.

Sorry - really long. But there are so many insightful comments; I have to pass them on.

"Despair and Hope in Trump’s America

Americans are optimistic about the communities they live in—but not their nation. Why?

... through its cycle of struggle and renewal, the United States is in a continual process of becoming a better version of itself... the United States is doing more than most other societies to position itself, despite technological and economic challenges, for a new era of prosperity, opportunity, and hope...

And now we have Donald Trump. We have small-town inland America—the culture I think of myself as being from—being credited or blamed for making a man like this the 45th in a sequence that includes Washington, Lincoln, and FDR. I view Trump’s election as the most grievous blow that the American idea has suffered in my lifetime...

In its calamitous effects—for climate change, in what might happen in a nuclear standoff, for race relations—this could indeed be as consequential a “change” election as the United States has had since 1860. But nothing about the voting patterns suggests that much of the population intended upheaval on this scale...

The “fury out there” argument was expressed by, among others, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, who was trying to rebut criticisms that his site’s tolerance for serving up popular, profitable, and wholly fictitious reports as “news” had skewed voters’ perceptions of reality, mainly toward the right...

These results also underscore the sense my wife and I took unmistakably from our visits: that city by city, and at the level of politics where people’s judgments are based on direct observation rather than media-fueled fear, Americans still trust democratic processes and observe long-respected norms...

Yet Donald Trump has won. How could his message of despair and anger about the American prospect, and disrespect for the norms that made us great, have prevailed in a nation that still believes in itself at the local level?

The American public has just made a decision of the gravest consequence, largely based on distorted, frightening, and bigoted caricatures of reality that we all would recognize as caricature if applied to our own communities. Given the atrophy of old-line media with their quaint regard for truth, the addictive strength of social media and their unprecedented capacity to spread lies, and the cynicism of modern politics, will we ever be able to accurately match image with reality? The answer to that question will determine the answer to another: whether this election will be a dire but survivable challenge to American institutions or an irreversible step toward something else."

Clinton’s supporters aren’t ‘sore losers,’ and Donald Trump’s way of working isn’t normal. The far right has spent years building opposition to her...

This means that another important question has been under-covered: who killed Hillary Clinton? Kellyanne Conway’s answer at Harvard was simple: Hillary Clinton, with her lack of an economic message for the white working class and her inability to connect with people, killed herself. This is simply false...

But here are some obvious possibilities:

The man who did not find Hillary crooked, FBI Director James Comey, is a chief suspect...

Let’s return to David Bossie, the man who sparked the Harvard “cat-fight.” After Bill Clinton won the presidency, Bossie became one of the biggest floggers of the pseudo scandals that enveloped Bill and Hillary while they were in the White House. In 2008, his anti-Hillary “documentary” sparked the Citizens United case in the US supreme court that gutted the country’s campaign finance laws. Before joining the Trump campaign as Bannon’s deputy, Bossie was head of Citizens United. Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, who has covered Bossie for as long as I have, calls him “The Captain Ahab of Clinton-haters.” At long last, he killed the whale...

Bossie, of course, couldn’t kill alone. He had a band of co-conspirators from an anti-Clinton machine that has been fortified by hundreds of millions of dollars of dark money over the past generation. As First Lady, Clinton was ridiculed and vilified for calling this “a vast right-wing conspiracy,” but she was right...

The activists, groups, think tanks and nonprofit “charities” that made hay over the petty controversies that dogged her had already succeeded in driving up her negative trust and honesty numbers well before the 2016 campaign. The garden was already planted; all Donald Trump needed to do is water it with his chants of “Crooked Hillary"...

We all have a right – and a duty – to call out misinformation and divisive tactics from Trump and his enablers at places like Breitbart. Much is at stake if Trump and his brand of politics is normalized. It’s up to all of us to prevent that from happening."

This is an honest question I've been curious about. I'm not being sArcastic. Has the outcome or anything else about this election caused any of you to change or rethink your position on what types of firearms should be allowed to be purchased/owned in America?

For me, no. I'm against rapid-fire automatic weapons for anyone other than the military with the exception of pistols for police. I don't particularly care how many shotguns anyone owns.

I think background checks should be required, and the gun show loopholes should be closed. Many of the "massacres" we've seen in recent years have been carried out by people who should never have been allowed to have guns in the first place, and we need to find a way to stop them from having access.

But I've held this position for many years, so nothing about this one has changed my mind any. Not yet, at least.

bpatters, Do you mean rapid fire and automatic weapons? Or just automatic? They are 2 different things, shotguns can be rapid fire.

I'm not trying to get into that debate, but reading between the lines of your post it seems you may have considered the possibility of reconsidering due to the election result and direction the country may be taking? Or am I reading too much into the "not yet" part of post?

If I were looking at the future of this country, and my way of life, as doomed, as I think many of you here now do I would have to take some kind of action to try to protect myself and family. I would think it fair to be able to switch positions on the firearm issue, especially if I thought the first amendment were being attacked as vigorously as some think.

I have traveled to a lot different countries throughout he world and in at least half, probably more, a secret police platoon would have come in the middle of the night for people saying the things being said here. I think the first amendment is safe. The second amendment helps ensure it, at least in my mind.

Petty controversies? The "vast right wing conspiracy" lead to her husband being impeached for obstruction of justice and perjury.

She took a fortune in “speaking fees” and payments from wall street political donors and foreign governments for “foundations” in obvious exchange for future political favors.

She took furniture and artwork from the White House. No? She had to pay it back, I don't call that petty, maybe it is petty, if so it's pathetically petty.

Her quote when 4 Americans were killed in Lybia- "what difference, at this point.

She campaigned Trump's abuse of women when her husband was a serial cheater who has been accused of having sexual encounters with non consenting partners - I call that rape but the media who is supposed to be so biased against her for some reason likes to tone it.
down.

"Her quote when 4 Americans were killed in Lybia- "what difference, at this point."

She was not devaluing the loss of life - instead responding to the fact that it happened, that the inquisition she was going through would not make a difference. Bengazi was always political. Our money spent to find out . nothing.

Regarding speaking fees, there have been analyses of other democrats and republicans doing the same thing - they were never excoriated for doing so, and accused of being controlled by those they spoke to.

Sorry, automatic. The kind where you can hold a trigger down and fire many shots at a time.

No, I haven't reconsidered. And I won't go out a buy a gun. I own a many-year-old single shot 22 that we used for snakes when I was growing up. It's in my nephew's barn, as far as I know, and can stay there. If I ever move back to the country, I'll dig it out. But for snakes, not for people.

Thank you, Lynx, for your post about the Clintons. I've read a lot about both of them and the controversies surrounding them. I do keep my reading to historical books. I refuse to read the smear books by Kessler and such.

GPIG, you really need to read and research using reputable sources. I have a reading list I can give you with FACTUAL information.

Ditto Lynx & bpatters on pretty much all. Especially automatic weapons. How did that ever become legal for civilians?

I've never owned a gun nor has anyone in my extended family going back to some time in the early 20th century. My farming forebearers must have had guns. My recent family's just not gun-oriented. And of course, Dad had to turn in his service pistol when he left the combat zone or whenever.

"but reading between the lines of your post it seems you may have considered the possibility of reconsidering due to the election result and direction the country may be taking?"

You're talking about the 2nd Amendment solution? Were any group or militia of any persuasion to try that I don't think they'd get very far against the US military.